Overcoming Perfectionism: The Joy of Just Okay

“The amount of happiness that you have depends on the amount of freedom you have in your heart.” ~Thich Nhat Hanh

Yesterday I was talking to my dear friend Erin about all the pressures to be perfect—to be more than just enough. To always be striving to be 100 percent.

I realized later that this has been going on all my life. Haven’t we all felt it?

In grade school, the importance of getting those A’s, being on the teacher’s list, always getting the gold star.

In high school, being popular, being smart, being a jock—whichever lane we chose to fit into to, there was always the hierarchy of being the best.

Later came the career ladder—always needing to excel. Not to even mention the pressures to be a perfect parent and the ongoing need to be the perfect child.

Okay, my neck is stiff just writing this.

I am a child of the fifties. I remember people having hobbies, just doing things they enjoyed with no value system attached. Whether it was painting a picture, crocheting a potholder, or making furniture in the garage, the point was the joy.

I don’t remember a lot of apologies about how something wasn’t up to some predefined set of standards. The end product might wind up on a wall or in the entryway, but it might stay in the garage.

The point was the experience, not the outcome. A lot of weird crafts on the wall were just accepted.

It would be so easy to blame Martha Stewart for this change in values, but I don’t think she wields that much power. Granted, for many things, the bar became set so high that it was impossible to have fun.

I remember looking at my dyed Easter eggs, a project I have once loved, and becoming the critic. They were a bit amateurish. The colors were blurry and my little dots looked strangely like mold! Ah, I forgot the most important part of the story: I am an amateur!

These are just eggs to be hidden in tall grass and eventually broken up into egg salad. Only I am holding them as a standard of my current worth.

Here is my personal philosophy. I only know this is my truth, but maybe it will resound with you, as well.

The worse I feel about me, the more I need to be perfect.

My birthday cake with the sliding top layer becomes symbolic of my own inner imperfection, and so it is hard to accept. My attempts at watercolor are not ready for MOCA, and so I lose the joy of just splashing some water and paint on paper and having fun.

I am not good enough. The jewelry I love to make has a weird knot midway and instead of loving its imperfection, I toss it aside as not good enough and quit making jewelry. I am not enough.

I think the reason I cannot just enjoy these simple activities is that in some recess of my mind, I have chosen to use each of these as a defining point of who I am.

Instead of finding the fun of pursuing something I like to do, I have used it as a scale of my own value. So each time one of these activities falls short of my personal benchmark, in my mind it is actually me falling short of being perfect, or at least pretty darn good!

I’ve kind of known this for a while, but as I now face it full on, words on a page, I see how I have shut myself off from such a wealth of joy, of fun, of pure pleasure.

If each pursuit is not a review of my personal worth, then my world opens. I can detach from the outcome. Wow, I could even start something and not need to finish it. Now, that’s a concept. Fun could just be fun, no first place ribbons attached.

It’s almost a New Year, a fresh slate and I have a new manifesto. I am okay, perfect in my imperfection. In my life, it is okay to be average, to be below average sometimes! To just be.

I am reveling in the sweet comfort of mediocrity. I am going to look for the end result: the joy. The path that gets to me that place is irrelevant.

No more apologies for a cake with slipping layers. I mean, Hello! It’s cake after all. Yummy in any form.

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Did you enjoy this post? Please share the wisdom :)

Really lovely post Karen – I was always a people-pleasing-over-achiever – and I’ve been able to let go a lot of that because I just had to for my sanity (it has really been a gift). But I do get occasional pangs of panic around not having some areas of my life not perfectly put together. Strange…. You are spot on when you relate the need to be perfect to how we are feeling about ourselves on the inside…

I need to explore this a bit – thank you again!

http://www.apeacefulpath.com Karen

We will be exploring this together!

Jennifer

Oh, I really enjoyed this post. Yesterday, my boss sent out an email with volunteer hours broken up my employee in my department. This year, I did not have the most volunteer hours due to a major illness in my family. But you can be the first thing I thought when I saw this was: “Wow, next year I need to do more!” Um, no. I scaled back for a reason – a reason that I’m not finished with yet. Then reading this I realized how much of my worth is tied up in doing outstanding things. I won’t join a yoga class because I’m uncoordinated and pudgy – the list goes on after there. Thank you for sharing this, it really made me think.

Jennifer

Oh, I really enjoyed this post. Yesterday, my boss sent out an email with volunteer hours broken up my employee in my department. This year, I did not have the most volunteer hours due to a major illness in my family. But you can be the first thing I thought when I saw this was: “Wow, next year I need to do more!” Um, no. I scaled back for a reason – a reason that I’m not finished with yet. Then reading this I realized how much of my worth is tied up in doing outstanding things. I won’t join a yoga class because I’m uncoordinated and pudgy – the list goes on after there. Thank you for sharing this, it really made me think.

Elizabethsadhu

I love this!! AND I love Karen. Thanks Lori for sharing all these wonderful people with us and for doing what you do for the world!!
Elizabeth in Oregon

http://www.apeacefulpath.com Karen

Boy Jennifer – I get it – for many years I have not joined a group I know I would love because I can’t sing – I just went – it was wonderful.
Yoga – here you come!

Emily

This post really spoke to me. I’ve always had a problem with things being perfect, and at times I would realize that maybe it was because I was letting those objects/products that I made so meticulously be a value for who I am as a person. Even now I struggle with doing my art because I look at it with an overly critical eye. Artists are supposed to be somewhat critical, but I look at it with a fine magnifying glass and scrutinize over the tiniest flaw. It took reading your article for me to fully realize that, and to realize that some of my favorite artists out there have works that I found flaws with, but overall I was in love with the entire picture. So not everything has to be perfect. Seriously, thank you so much for writing this it really hit home with me : )

http://www.solutionsfromwithin.ca Libby

Thank you! Very refreshing and so inspiring to consider at this time of year….yes, where have the pleasure hobbies gone… thanks for adding to the colors of my intentions of the new year

Wishing you a joyful and simply delightful year!

Rose

This really resonates with me. I’ve given up (or not even started) things I want to do simply because I’ve already made myself out to be a failure. It’s sad, really. I’m getting older and beginning to realize this life is not very long, my worst critic is looking right back at me in the mirror. She needs to lighten up, to accept her flaws, and start living her life according to what’s burning to get out from the inside. All held back by that wet blanket of “perfectionism”.

Tee Fimmano

Terrific article, Karen!! I think back at all the things I missed out on because I was afraid of making a mistake. I always wanted to play the piano in public. I was a gifted musician from the age of 4, but I couldn’t bear the humiliation if I screwed up. So that will be one of my life’s biggest regrets. ( I can no longer play piano because of RA). Anyway, I’d like to share my favorite quote. It’s how I live each day now: “If you have low expectations, everything will make you happy.” It solves all my problems!!

http://twitter.com/Ymkes Ymke van der Schaaf

Yes, I really enjoyed this post! Thanks for sharing your thoughts!
I recognise a lot of the examples you wrote. It makes me realize that all over the world people are facing the same kind of things in life..
I think it’s a wonderful thought to love your imperfections. However it’s easier said then done!

with Love from the Netherlands,
Ymke

DOillustration

I feel like I’ve been travelling through life this way the whole time, and i still manage to find outside sources of crticism and doubt. People dont like to see other people happy in their mediocrity, mostly because they arent happy in theirs.

I never saw the point in studying and studying just to get an A when I could give it a once over an hour before the test and get a B…they both get me a diploma.
I never wanted the best stuff in life, just the stuff I wanted…wether it happened to be the best or 100th best. It was the thing i wanted, I didnt care either way.

The place I am really struggling with mediocrity is in my relationships with others. I feel like everyone has a million best friends, and theyre all dating the prettiest, sweetest women. I am jealous of them severely. I miss having a big group of friends, but I’m almost 30 and everyone is either married with kids or on the way, so i understand that.
When it comes to women, I’ve just never been happy with what I get. I dont lack female companionship, friend or other, but I cant say i’ve ever come close to any sort of ideal I have in my mind. I dont want anything incredible, my standards are very rational (I’ve been told too low sometimes), just a person I can appreciate inside and out. Although I have alway been severely partial to redheads. I feel like everyone else I know found that 10 years ago, and I’m starting to realize the well has probably been sucked dry.

Is it irrational to want some kind of cosmic justice for not being shallow like everyone else I know?

Celine

Thank you for your article. It helped me reflect on this year, and recent experiences.

This year, at the age of 24, I came to a realization that I was not “doing” anything anymore during my leisure time, wasn’t seeing any of my friends, and my life had entirely become my work. Over time, with a lack of motivation building up more and more, I was drifting from that too, and was feeling lost, not even knowing who I was anymore. I realized I needed to “get up” our of this hole and do something, but had frozen in angst because I felt that nothing I would do would be perfect. With the uncertainty of knowing whether something would turn out “right” or not, everything was anxiety.

However, ironically, I decided to take up ballet lessons. After thinking about it for many years I made myself start again. At the age of 14 I had stopped because I was so nervous of what the teacher thought of me, with any sign of critique, which mattered more to me at the time than if I enjoyed dancing or not.

But at my first adult class I saw clearly that this was the reason it took me so long to start again (even 10 years later)…the instructor made one small comment to me and the immediate feeling that she hated me and I wasn’t good enough came to mind and I flinched. However, I told myself that this wasn’t true and to let go. Even if by chance it was, I was the one paying for the class!

Ever since then dancing has not been about being perfect. Its about enjoying it. If I can’t do what the rest of the class is doing I try my best. Of course the feeling of doing a sequence correctly is uplifting, I’ve realized my “hobby” is more about the feeling I enjoy stretching with ballet slippers on and moving in flow with the music.

Its been quite a journey recently, but getting myself to just relax and enjoy ballet instead of feeling the need to be better than the rest of the class, or worrying about what the teacher thinks of me (I’ve realized how much they actually want to help you!), has been a great lesson.

(I’ve also recently started Yoga, I would definitely recommend it!! Ballet can be more about doing things “perfectly” in some ways, but yoga is connecting with yourself in many different forms).

Come2cali4nia

There is a vitality, a life force, an energy, a quickening that is translated through you into action,and because there is only one of you in all of time, this expression is unique. And if you block it, it will never exist through any other medium and it will be lost. The world will not have it. It is not your business to determine how good it is nor how valuable nor how it compares with other expressions. It is your business to keep it yours clearly and directly, to keep the channel open. –Martha Graham

Thank you, Karen. Your post was really inspirational. When I think back on all the things I didn’t do because I felt I wouldn’t be perfect, it makes me sick. All the joy I missed out on because I was so paralyzed by my fear of what other people would think. All the years I have been miserable because I thought it was safer to hide than to take a chance and do what I really love. It was so nice to read your post and all the resulting comments and learn that there are so many of us out here who are incredibly wonderful people (just as we are) who feel the same way. Perhaps we can give each other the courage to just be who we are and do what we love in spite of the unreasonable and impossible standards we set for ourselves.

Christa Avampato

Thank you so much for this post, Karen. We do need to get back to just enjoying activities and trying new things just for the fun of it. We are so driven to be the best at everything that I think we shy away from new experiences for fear of not excelling. We’re missing out on a lot of happiness.

Karen

What has amazed me Kizel is how many of us have such similar experiences. The last line of your comment is so well said – I truly believe this is a group recovery!

Karen

There are so many wonderful comments in response to my post – I just want to thank you all for sharing your stories. I know one the best tools for me to feel courageous is not to feel alone. I believe that as each of us becomes aware of our utter “okayness” – we give other permission to find theirs. And maybe we will find we have become the majority!
Again, thank you so much for letting us see into your hearts.

Anonymous

I feel as though I’ve come to the same realization at intervals over the past 10 to 15 years, yet somehow I’m still struggling with perfectionism. I’d love to read about specific techniques that people can use to let go of perfectionism. (and then I will do those techniques PERFECTLY — wait a minute — )

The Manifestor

As a quality miser, one needs to look at perfection as a measurement. Not of self-worth, but an agreed upon expectation. The expectation of the deliverable (product or service) should have specific requirements that all parties involved agree upon, as well as terms in the event that the deliverable it does not meet the expectation. This is necessary on a lot of our products and services today (could you imagine a seatbelt that did not work because there was no requirement set? Would you want to trust your life to a mediocre serviced airplane?) So, perfection has its place.

But NOT when it comes to you. The you you think you are. Our true nature is perfect as it is. Our ego (mind) that we tend to think of as the real you and me, is the illusion. Applying perfection here is only setting you up for unrealistic sadness and depression. You are not your body/mind. You are not your doings. You are not your accomplishments. You are not your beliefs. You are not your associations. These are the ego. You are awareness of all this world. Pure consciousness. Perfection is an illusion of this reality we live in. And when you apply perfection to yourself, you only move further from your true nature and strengthen your ego. You can *BE* perfect, failure, mediocre,…. You just are. That is all. You could never BE the gross labels of words we use to describe things. Labels are just a tool, not a reality (a whole other topic). Most of what we call reality is just agreed-upon mental concepts. Understand this and you will start to free yourself of the “suffering” that you and others bring upon your heart.

This was exactly what I needed! It sounds so recognizable… I will print your article out and post it above my bed… This year I will start to enjoy myself and my imperfections! Txs for sharing K@

http://jakyastikblogs.blogspot.com Jaky Astik

What a thought! I always believed that the imperfect was a perfect in itself. So perfect that there was nothing as much. I don’t try to be perfect. I just try to be the perfection of my existence.That means, simply me.

After my second, unsuccessful attempt at running a marathon, I realized: my attempts are not quite because I love running, but because I feel compelled to keep going, to attain some level of perfection in form and in my every day physical appearance. Just running and enjoying the pureness of movement and the opportunity to actually run should be enough. That’s been lost because of this “I’m not good enough” mentality. Thanks for your insights. For me, it’s time to stop this kind of thinking.

Alex Rae

This is a beautiful and honest post, totally resonates. Perfectionism will trap you and drive you mad, its purpose is to straight-jacket your authentic self. I actually just wrote an article about this here http://www.wildheartgirl.com

steve. wozniak

as I was walking people cold heartedI don’t know if people believe in psychic abilitiesbut I do most people have psychic intuitionwhen I was walking I wanted to trance everything was moved fast forward I see the hatred peoples faces seeing things in fast forward children do it all the time now I leave that up to you to figure out

Christina

Thank you!

Jennifer

This is such an uplifting, wonderful article. I really needed this in my life right now. Thank you so much.

Andrew Canberra Hellcat Pelech

I love the line “I’m revelling in the sweet comfort of mediocrity”
I’m very guilty of a) being WAY TOO hard on myself and b) attaching my self-esteem to outside activities (sport, video games, work). Consequntly I felt I wasn’t good enough at most activities. Especially with cricket. I’ve always thought being a good cricketer would make me feel good about myself, so I’d try too hard and over-practice rather than just playing for fun.

I was involved with Amway a while back and message was “if you’re not spending EVERY second building the ‘business’ then you’re not trying hard enough. They championed the overachievers and shamed those who didn’t want “the dream” badly enough! For them money = happiness

There’s almost a taboo on mediocrity. Yes it’s good to be a success but there’s a lot of ordinary folks doing their best to survive but are still quite happy. Nothing wrong with being an honest cog in the machine: work 40 hours a week, pay the bills, then spend your free time relaxing with friends or family or doing fun hobbies. Quite simple really.

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